When Violence Comes From the Right, Media Hear No Evil

Despite the work of media watchdog groups like Media Matters, and groups that track right-wing extremism, like the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League, the corporate media insist on ignoring the influence of the Far Right’s toxic rhetorical drumbeat of hatred and anger in promoting a political context where violence can break out.

“At a time like this, it is terrible that we do have to think about politics, but no matter what the shooter’s motivations were, the left is going to blame this on the Tea Party movement. . . . While we need to take a moment to extend our sympathies to the families of those who died, we cannot allow the hard left to do what it tried to do in 1995 after the Oklahoma City bombing. Within the entire political spectrum, there are extremists, both on the left and the right. Violence of this nature should be decried by everyone and not used for political gain.”

Basic journalistic standards should require the authors to clarify for their readers what their Tea Party source means by the “hard left,” and in what way, precisely, did the “hard left” misconstrue the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. Instead, Hulse and Zernike close their piece with two bold lies from a dubious source without attempting to discern whether or not the assertions are true. Such is the state of our national “conversation” on the corrosive effects of right-wing extremism on our political discourse. Anyone reading the article who is unfamiliar with Timothy McVeigh’s ideology would have the impression that the “hard left” had perpetrated some kind of hoax regarding a domestic terrorist attack that killed 168 Americans including nineteen children.

The initial media coverage of the shooting in Tucson has been troubling, especially since there is a clear context of right-wing violence in recent years. Not long ago, during the 2008 presidential campaign, three white supremacists were arrested in Colorado for planning to assassinate then candidate Barack Obama. They had high-powered rifles, bulletproof vests, camouflage clothing, and walkie-talkies.

In April 2009, Richard Poplawski sparked a shoot out with Pittsburgh police officers using an AK-47 and wearing a bulletproof vest after posting blogs at the far-right Stormfront.org website where he had an account. He killed three officers: Paul Sciullo II, Eric Kelly, and Stephen Mayhle, and wounded two others. He believed that Obama was part of a conspiracy to take Americans’ guns away. One of Poplawski’s posts included a YouTube video link of Fox News host Glenn Beck ranting about the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) readying camps for dissidents.

That same month, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) published an “intelligence assessment” titled “Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment.” The original commission for the report dated back to the Bush Administration and it was simply an attempt to warn federal, state, and local law enforcement of the growing threat of right-wing extremism. The DHS report evoked harsh criticism from right-wing media stars, such as Michelle Malkin who called it a “piece of crap report” that “is a sweeping indictment of conservatives,” and Bill O’Reilly, who claimed the “left” was just trying to pin the uptick in extremism on “the Glenn Beck guys.”

On May 31, 2009, a 51-year-old anti-abortion activist, Scott Roeder, shot Dr. George Tiller in the head as he left a Wichita church killing him instantly. Fox News host Bill O’Reilly had been hammering Dr. Tiller beginning in 2005 routinely calling him “Tiller the Baby Killer.” According to PolitiFact, O’Reilly had mentioned Tiller by name on his show forty-two times, and in twenty-four instances called him “Tiller the Baby Killer.” O’Reilly said on a November 2006 broadcast: “For more than year, ‘The Factor’ has been investigating Dr. George Tiller of Kansas. ‘Tiller the Baby Killer,’ as some call him, will perform late-term abortion for just about any reason.”

Ten days later, on June 10, 2009, an 89-year-old man, James von Brunn, double-parked his car in front of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, a block from the National Mall in Washington, D.C., and entered with a .22 rifle. He killed a 39-year-old security guard, Stephen Johns, and badly wounded another man. It was the first time the museum had been attacked in its sixteen-year history. Despite Brunn’s ties to all sorts of far-right white supremacist groups Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Jonah Goldberg all insisted he was a leftist. “This guy is a leftist, if anything,” Limbaugh said on his show. “This guy’s beliefs, this guy’s hate, stems from influence that you find on the left.”

Then came the “open carry” people showing up at Obama events; and the health care town hall disruptions; and the immigrant bashing; and the “Second Amendment remedies”; and the calls to “reload”; and the racist attacks against the first African-American president; and so on. And now on Saturday, January 8, 2011, a sitting member of the House of Representatives and a federal judge are gunned down at a friendly public gathering.

The corporate media like to play the faux balance game and claim that there are “extremists” on “both sides.” But the last time the “left” engaged in anti-government violence was forty years ago when an infinitesimally small group of white middle-class college kids pretended for a short time to be Tupamaros. Even radical environmental groups like Earth First!, which on occasion attacked corporate property, haven’t done anything in years.

Unfortunately, in 2009, President Obama failed to use the bully pulpit to explain to the American people the true causes of the Great Recession that continues to cause widespread suffering and confusion. Worse, he allowed his political and ideological opponents to fill the vacuum for him. By standing by the side of the big banks and giving Wall Street a get-out-of-jail-free card the rightwing was able to seize upon the unfinished business of cleaning up the mess and point to the failures of the federal government. With Beck, Limbaugh, and the rest of the right-wing media personalities leading the charge, they successfully shifted responsibility away from Wall Street and the oligarchy and toward progressives and Democrats. Even public employees and their unions have been singled out as culprits. Through his lack of clarity Obama allowed this shift to take place, much like the way he lost the handle on the narrative explaining his health care initiative.

This state of affairs bred a profound feeling of powerlessness and apprehension, as well as contempt for the government, always seething from the Far Right, but exacerbated mightily by the terrible economic news we hear every day. Soon town hall gatherings that normally would be civil affairs were degenerating into well-organized and well-financed slugfests and shouting matches.

And in this perilous atmosphere the corporate media insist on ventilating the most extreme and violent views — so long as they are emitted from the lips of right-wingers. Ann Coulter’s entire public career has been dedicated to this kind of vitriol directed at Democrats. Glenn Beck, Jonah Goldberg, and others have re-written American history to portray every Democratic politician from Woodrow Wilson to Barack Obama as Hitler-loving “liberal fascists.” Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage and the lesser radio personalities spend three hours a day smearing liberals. And then there’s Sarah Palin, who was ironically elevated to prominence by Arizona’s most famous politician, and whose unique brand of gendered sarcasm has brought this harsh rhetoric to a new level.

What media personalities does the “left” have to match any of these people?

Obama spoke on Saturday with feeling and gravitas about the tragedy that took place in Tucson. Why couldn’t he have spoken with similar feeling and gravitas about the tragedy of eight million Americans being thrown out of work, teachers and other public sector workers being laid off, and the shattering of the nation’s economy and self-confidence?

It took a crusty, 73-year-old Pima County, Arizona Sheriff, Clarence Dupnik, to say what few in the corporate media are willing to say:

“When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government,” he said during the news conference after the shooting. “The anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous. And unfortunately, Arizona I think has become sort of the capital. We have become the Mecca for prejudice and bigotry. Let me say one thing, because people tend to pooh-pooh this business about all the vitriol that we hear inflaming the American public by people who make a living off of doing that. That may be free speech, but it’s not without consequences.”

Instinctively, the gatekeepers inside the mainstream media jumped on Sheriff Dupnik. On the Right the response was predictably shrill. Erick Erickson, who is a paid right-wing commentator for CNN, quickly deflected attention away from the political context of right-wing demagoguery. “The left is using this tragedy to score political points,” he wrote onhis blog. “Rep. Giffords was on Gov. Palin’s target list for defeat this past November. The left claims Gov. Palin has blood on her hands. So does the tea party movement. Let’s not let the left, yet again, spin this against the tea party movement, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, or Sarah Palin inciting violence. That’s both a profound lie and just another, though lesser, bit of evil.” And this defense comes from a guy who called former Supreme Court Justice David Souter a “goat fucking child molester.”

The irony here is stunning: The noise machine of the organized Right in this country — with its Echo Chamber, its 24-hour “news” channel, its think tanks and publishing houses, its talk radio, its money, and its power — thunders deafeningly throughout our political discourse. Yet when one of its members commits an act of violence the whole apparatus suddenly turns to convince us that the only noise it really makes is as quiet as the sound of a bird’s wing cutting the air.

Joseph Palermo

Posted on January 10, 2011

DISCLAIMER: The opinions expressed here are those of the individual contributor(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the LA Progressive, its publisher, editor or any of its other contributors.

About Joseph Palermo

Joseph Palermo is Professor of History, California State University, Sacramento. Professor Palermo's most recent book is The Eighties (Pearson 2012). He has also written two other books: In His Own Right: The Political Odyssey of Senator Robert F. Kennedy (Columbia, 2001); and Robert F. Kennedy and the Death of American Idealism (Pearson, 2008). Before earning a Master's degree and Doctorate in History from Cornell University, Professor Palermo completed Bachelor's degrees in Sociology and Anthropology from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and a Master's degree in History from San Jose State University. His expertise includes the 1980s; political history; presidential politics and war powers; social movements of the 20th century; the 1960s; and the history of American foreign policy. Professor Palermo has also written articles for anthologies on the life of Father Daniel Berrigan, S.J. in The Human Tradition in America Since 1945 (Scholarly Resources Press, 2003); and on the Watergate scandal in Watergate and the Resignation of Richard Nixon (CQ Press, 2004).

I liken the Right’s noise machine to a person who floods the living room and the guest rooms with gasoline, really soaking the sofas and beds, and then when a fire breaks out says: “Hey, I didn’t start the fire,” which is empirically true (enough for corporate media) but only a part of the story. The media don’t like context, never has, never will (especially “historical” context).

The Dems are far more polished than in the days of the Dixiecrats, but the overall thrust of the American corporate empire hasn’t changed in decades, maybe centuries–no matter which party leads/mis-leads. That’s because, as the senior Dr. King said–after his son, Martin Luther, was assassinated–America is a “sick society.”

Until we can address coolly and rationally the flaws that have been inherent in this empire from its genesis, and often inscribed in our revered and generally misunderstood Constitution… we shall continue to have tragedies and massacres of the scope of Arizona–and worse!

Bunk!! The filth and libel which the right spews 24/7
is without compare, except for the Swiftboating of Al Gore
in 2004 when the repetition of lies told extemely loudly
became factor in his loss. Since that time, the Republican
Rightwing Taliban (in the form of Murdoch and Fox) have
conducted outright warfare against anyone who is not to
the right of Bill O’Reilly. The volume and viciousness was
turned up in mid-2008 when it looked like a black man
just might get into the White House. David Koch, Dick
Armey and others bought themselves a Tea Party driven in
no small part by lying propaganda from a dozen rightwing
think tanks, mainstream and rightwing media and Republican
officials. The amount of hatred and vitriol spread by this
gang is incalculable — and the left did not respond anywhere
near in kind, nowhere–It should have but did not have the
deep pockets like those on the right where the Chamber of
Commerce, NAM and other corporate associations.

Since the left has been largerly effectively silenced by a so-called
mainstream media, the right claims that the lack of
a screaming response means their lies and hatred must be
right. And, the people who have infiltrated the Government
in the Republican Party have gained a cadre of hate
merchants to do their bidding, and that of their corporate
sponsors, thereby keeping their hands clean for most part.

The supposed sympathy of the right is hypocritical-Palin is a damned joke. You would have thought that Oklahoma City would
have taught us something – and for ten years, the idiots on
the right were less vocal and violent. But, urged on by
the Republican Taliban and corporations, it is back, increased and likely much more dangerous.

Out of the realm of politics, looking at the American Culture–one might say, the American Way–of Violence.

From the John Wayne movies of my youth to the latest claptrap on a “Law and Order” franchise, we observe a culture obsessed with violence–“taking no prisoners,” “shooting first, asking questions later.” And “Left” media moguls have been just as responsible for wallowing in that culture, glorifying it, exploiting it, as has the Right.

We’ve lost the art of the narrative, can barely tell a story without the “deus ex machina” of some hero or villain (or both) violently resolving all the conflicts.

Now… I’m afraid both Left and Right will try to capitalize on the Tucson tragedy. The terms of the debate are already in place: this is about fiery political rhetoric, one hears. Much larger questions about the 2nd Amendment–written at a time when people carried muskets for shooting their rabbit dinners!–those questions will be deferred again–just too thorny, too controversial.

We’ll shake our heads and mourn the losses. And the carnage will contine at home and abroad. Predator drones will crash down on wedding parties in Afghanistan and freaks of one stripe or another will mow down their fellow citizens in shopping malls of America. And a culturally impoverished and ignorant populace will continue to suffer these horrendous outrages.

More people are often killed when a commerical turbo-prop crashes, than in the Arizona shooting this past weekend. Both highly regrettable events. The failure of a small part, purchased by a few dollars, has cost society many more lives on numerous occasions, with no one being prosecuted or convicted for it.

Can you describe some attributes of the most commonly shot people in the U.S., and of the people that shot them?

Convicted felons. Shot by law abiding citizens. I wish there were fewer prisons and prisoners. Not all felons deserve the label, by any means.

But, nobody was shooting at rabbits on Lexington Green on April 19th, 1775. Nor were our armed private citizens shooting at rabbits when the British burned Washington D.C. ~40 years later. James Madison tried to raise 100,000 to invade Canada. The Supreme Court said no. We shouldn’t keep ourselves from revisiting old principles, nor be closed to change.

If you’d been a civilian at Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941, and someone offered you a rifle to defend the United States, would you have refused it?

Was abolitionist Frederick Douglass wrong for seeking firearms to free his people?
Would you have refused to fight for the Union in the war between confederated & united states, leaving millions enslaved?

Nothing necessarily wrong with refusing. But if you are not willing to protect yourself & society, but willingly pay taxes for wars that murder innocent strangers, ***who*** will stop our government if they declare more wars, and start murdering innocent strangers at an increased rate?

You going to stop them bare-fisted, or leave it to the citizens you had disarmed, leaving them also with only bare-fists, butter knives, baseball bats and the like?

Do you think any of the folks that hosted Underground Railroad stations had rifles, and only thought about shooting rabbits?

If you are between 17-45, and a male (sigh), you are by Federal law part of the unorganized militia. It is your duty to see to it that we do not allow our government to be tyrannical, subjugating and harming the humans of the Earth.

Come shoot with us or watch. It’ll be fun and we could use the help. All are welcome despite the Federal law mentioned previously. Females – you’ve had the vote for 90 years, while men have been protecting & destroying societies for centuries. Here’s you’re chance to do your duty as a citizen-soldier, finally completing the full circle of citizenship. J.K., sort of. 😉

Let the government get a few more legs up on EMF, directed acoustics, unmanned robots & vehicles, and other fancy weapons, and rifles will be almost useless in deterring aggressive governments. These aren’t make believe things. They exist and have been used against humans already. Go look at the DARPA MULE on you tube.

Do not be too quick. Do not disarm the last large society of humans that have some power to enforce their individual sovereignty, and the power to save individuals or groups of individuals from the aggressions of corporations, institutions, and governments. The private citizen, and private citizen-soldier needs more equivalency with the common soldiers in militaries, or the militaries & governments need to be defunded or otherwise slowed down forthwith.

Film, radio, records, and print media helped persuade various masses to pursue two world wars. We now have the Internet, and with it being interactive, a chance for you to better your predecessors. As borders dissolve and governments unite to oppress distributed dissidents or protesters residing on multiple continents, your help for humanity may be sorely needed. Learn how to do something useful.

I neither agree nor disagree with you. I’ve been called nasty ‘other’ party names on just about every issue I’ve given my opinion on. How many enemies does the two main parties have? Be a two-face against Americans and u messin’ with GOD.

LGBT Rights

Irene Monroe: Long before June officially became Gay Pride Month, and October “Coming Out Month” for the LGBTQ community, Halloween was unofficially our yearly celebrated “holiday,” dating as far back at the 1970s when it was a massive annual street party in San Francisco’s Castro district.

The Middle East

Richard Greeman: Anti-government demonstrations spread across Morocco after social media spread the story of Mousine Fikri, a fishmonger crushed to death inside a garbage truck as he tried to block the destruction of a truckload of his fish confiscated by police.